Precincts: A blueprint for creating places with purpose.

SYSTEMS AND PROCES PROCESSES SYSTEMS A

More and more our buildings are moving away from traditional box-like structures and dematerialising at the ground plane as boundaries between space and form are blurred. Our architects and designers can be bolder with modern technology flowing through to construction methods meaning the unorthodox is more feasible. In this way Foster’s recent Sales Force building and Quay Quarter recently completed in Sydney’s CBD have a unique character and identity in part attributable to advances in technology. The blurring of digital and physical environments influences how individuals connect with each other, businesses, and their surroundings. Mobile device usage and social media have popularised places, venues, and events by featuring specific landmarks, street art pieces, festivals, or menu items, as well as boosting audiences and precinct visitation. In turn, this has helped Councils fund activation projects within existing precincts to attract more visitors and reduce crime by creating a fun and relatable environment which garners participation, social pride and casual guardianship within the local community. The key to successful precinct development is to recognise this evolution and identify ways to create a more seamless experience moving between the digital and real environment in forms and spaces; in a way that brings us together.

TECHNOLOGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

PRIORITIES AT A GLANCE

Create seamless experiences between digital and physical worlds in the way people live and move around their neighbourhoods

Future-thinking capacity and need when planning infrastructure & technologies

Connecting people with services and opportunities that will improve their lives

Temporary or seasonal digital art installations have become more globally common, drawing crowds. This includes Julfilm på Götaplatsen, a short-story festive projection that changes every year and plays with architectural features on the Art Museum façade in Gothenburg, Sweden or Sydney’s own annual Vivid Festival featuring bespoke light installations and sculptures throughout the harbour foreshore and, due to its popularity, has extended to other Sydney precincts.

From a funding and delivery perspective, road, rail, utilities and services infrastructure from a funding and delivery perspective remains a fundamental barrier when forming or renewing major urban areas and impacts lived experiences for better or worse. In the 1990s, under a draft Metropolitan Strategy, Sydney’s northwest corridor opened, culminating in the establishment of Rouse Hill Town Centre in 2007. Without government commitment to infrastructure, roadways and transport connectivity are still unable to service the population. This is even with Sydney Metro Northwest recently opening, which provides a better solution for mass transport than the original bus T-Way. Learnings from projects like this have led to newer precincts in Sydney’s growth corridors, bringing public transport and other key

infrastructure connections in first; often requiring expenditure from both private and public sectors, where in striking balance around who pays, can stall progress. Technology continues to shape how precincts are planned, developed, and experienced by users. Technology such as driverless trains and ‘turn up and go’ buses are in our newer precincts, with other automated transport already being trialled. Autonomous vehicles now stand to further change travel in and between precincts. In industrial precincts automation increases accuracy and efficiency while reducing costs and injury; as automated cranes move cargo around ports; digital systems manage inventory in warehouses while robots handle repetitive tasks such as storing, retrieving, packing & shipping.

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CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD

PRECINCTS | A BLUEPRINT FOR CREATING PLACES WITH PURPOSE

ATTRIBUTE CHECKLIST